Tech: Abilipad

Abilipad is an application for the iPad that lets the user create customizable keyboard layouts. Designed to assist students or adults with reading or writing difficulties, everything on the keyboard grid is adjustable so the user can design a keyboard that works for them. Each key’s size, color, and font style can be customized, and even the corresponding text that is produced can appear in any color, font, and size. An individual key can even have a word, sentence, or picture assigned to it. The user can create as many different keyboard layouts as they wish.

These customizable keyboards can then be used on the application’s adaptive notepad, whose text and background colors can also be adjusted. Users can include images to their notepads from either the 150,000 available on the application or import their own. The application even offers word prediction and text-to-speech assistance. Text from emails, documents, or webpages can be pasted into the application’s notepad and be read with text-to-speech, each word being highlighted as the application reads the text out loud.